I.D. by Emma Ríos (Book Review)

In a futuristic setting and in an unknown planet, three very different people come together with a common goal. That is, to change their bodies through a brain transplant. For one of them, the reason behind seaking such an extreme surgery is very clear. The two other parties – their identities and desires – remain a mystery.

To begin this review, let me give you some of the technical information on this graphic novel. This comic book contains five (5) chapters that all follow each other in temporal sequence. At the end of the formal storyline, there are a few words written by Miguel Alberte Woodward on some scientific developments that parallel this story and how medical advances could potentially help people change their identity. Let’s take a look at some points that I found important for this review:

Awesome science-fiction idea. My Master subject is in Neuropsychology, so as you can imagine, the human brain is fascinating to me. The idea that you can surgically remove the brain from a body and transplant it into another body has numerous ethical and medical considerations. There are definitely a million reasons that lead a person to want to change their body. Hemispherectomy, the removal of one hemisphere of the brain that is performed as a treatment for children with severe epilepsy, might sound crazy to some but it is actually happening. What if we could remove the whole brain and put it in a new body. This is such an interesting idea for a story which leads me to my second, negative point.

Why is this a standalone?The whole time I was reading this I was thinking of how wonderful and complicated such a story is going to be and how amazing the next volumes will be, exploring human nature, body dysphoria and the like. I legitimately though that this was going to be the first volume in a series. And I was already preparing to buy physical copies of all of the volumes to be. As far as I understand it, this is not the case. But why? If that is the case then the whole story moved too fast, it definitely gives room to generate more issues with new characters and explorations of the ethical issues that arise from such a scenario. I urge Emma Ríos to please give us more of this world and this story.

The art style was great and fitting to the story. I read some reviews that said that the art style was confusing and that they didn’t like it. Personally, I felt that the pink colour dominating the illustrations really promoted and introduced this sci-fi ambience that fit perfectly to the storyline. And I don’t even like pink. The images really helped enhance the reading experience and in general I enjoyed this very much.
To conclude, this was a brilliant graphic novel if it were to be the first one in a series of volumes but a mediocre one if you look at it as a standalone. While this sentence might be somewhat confusing, I would urge anyone who is interested in science fiction or neuroscience or ethical considerations and human psychology to check this one out.

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